Mayoral Minute on Redevelopment of Waterloo Precinct - 13 August 2018

Tej minute below was moved by Lord mayor Clover Moore at the City of Sydney Council meeting on 13 August 2018, raising her concerns about the Waterloo options.

To Council:

On Thursday 2 August, Minister
for Family and Community Pru Goward MP released three similar
proposals for the future of the
Waterloo Housing Estate. The announcement was made
on Channel Nine news
catching tenants, and
indeed the City, by surprise.

The proposals
see the
Estate go from the current 2,012
homes up to 7,200 homes in a number of tall towers, some up to 40 storeys tall. What is proposed
will see the existing density of the site increased by about three
and a half times.

Once complete, it will be
one of the highest density precincts
in Australia.

In 2016, Urban Growth
released a widely
condemned and hastily prepared proposal
for the site which also
included 7,000 units. That
proposal was also lacking in detail and also released without
any proper consultation. The
response was so overwhelming that
the then Planning Minister, Rob Stokes MP, pulled
the plan and ordered Urban
Growth back to the drawing
board. He promised that the City would be consulted and involved in a collaborative process to guide planning for Waterloo and the wider
precinct.

This time around, the
Department of Family and Community Services has released a brochure that has seemingly come out
nowhere with no clear links to
any community consultation. It
contains proposals that have not been
developed with the community or the City
and once again there is
very little detail.

What is clear though
is that we’ve been given three alternative versions of the
plan so roundly rejected just two
years ago.

The City is alarmed that the scale of
development the Government is
proposing will condemn
people to substandard conditions and massively impact surrounding housing, existing
parks, streets and open space.

The City is also concerned about the substantial loss of the existing
street tree canopy in Waterloo and
the potential for extensive
overshadowing of living and recreational spaces.

The Minister says
the over-development will allow
the Government to
provide social and affordable housing but this is no
excuse for cramming ever more development into such a small area. There is nothing in their brochure that shows that it won’t just
be rows of tall towers set in dark streets and overshadowing
local parks.

And why should people on lower incomes be condemned to
homes, parks and streets without sunlight and to living in
rows of tall towers?

It seems the real
focus is on maximising the financial returns
from the sale of this public
land rather than
planning for the kind of
area that people will want to live
and work in over the coming
decades.

It’s tragic that this Government looks at a social
housing site and sees
dollar signs rather
than homes for
people who so desperately need them.

The three facetiously named alternatives in their brochure are Waterloo
Estate, Waterloo Village
Green and Waterloo Park:

Waterloo Estate is
proposed to have up to 6,800 dwellings and 3 hectares
of public open space;

Waterloo Village Green is proposed to have up to 6,900 total dwellings and 3.42 hectares of public open space; and

Waterloo Park is proposed to have up to 7,200 total
dwellings and 3.97 hectares of public open space.

Rather than real
alternatives, these seem more
like bargaining positions, with the 6,800 dwellings the Government’s bottom
line.

The building heights in
all three options seem to be concentrated in the 11-20 and
21-30 storey range, with a
number of huge
towers for each option in the 31-40 range.

For comparison, the Victoria Park
and Epsom Park precincts at Green
Square have 6,800 dwellings in 44 hectares with almost
7 hectares of parkland – 1,000 fewer dwellings
in more than twice the
area with almost twice as
much parkland.

At Harold
Park, there are
1,500 dwellings in 11 hectares with over 3.5 hectares of
parkland.

Put in context, all three proposals for Waterloo
constitute a massive overdevelopment of the site, especially when you consider other significant developments nearby.

Adjacent to the Estate is the proposed Waterloo Metro Quarter, another State project, which will house 700 people in three tall towers ranging from
23 to 29 storeys. This development
is being proposed to fund
the new metro station
planned for Waterloo.

Also, the Australian
Technology Park will see more than ten
thousand extra workers in the area
and the Green Square development
site will be home to 61,000 people
and 22,000 workers.

As well as the infrastructure
needed to support these
developments, traffic congestion, already heavy in surrounding streets,
will be compounded by traffic
streaming off the WestConnex
St Peter’s interchange which is expected to bring
120,000 extra cars every day.

This lack of transparency, poor consultation and
absence of real detail has all the
makings of a looming planning
disaster.

Each option identifies locations for possible community facilities, but there
is no detail about the
type or size of the
facility and no
information that suggests other social infrastructure has been thought about
or included.

And at a time when
social and affordable housing is at crisis point –
these proposals on scarce inner city public land do
shockingly little to address the urgent need for more.

Even though 30 per
cent of the proposed development is slated for
social housing, the three proposals
show that, at best, the current number of
social housing on the Estate will increase by only 148 homes. And with the affordable housing at just five per
cent of the overall housing mix - there will only
be a maximum of 360 affordable
rental homes.

The Minister has
said that tenants displaced by construction will
be allowed to return but, despite this being a 20 year
plan, no timetable has
been given for building the social and affordable housing units.

The Minister says
the process is at
the ‘masterplanning’ stage which will
take 12 months. She has said the Government is
planning to consult the
community between September
and October this
year but very few details about this
consultation process have been
released.

Lastly, a balanced and consultative plan is vital, not just for the City and our community, but for the State and Federal economies too
- intensifying
residential development to this extent risks displacing the high quality
local and small businesses driving the
new economy.

Since 2004, the City
economy has grown by $64
billion and our economy now
totals around

$125 billion. It’s 22 per
cent of the NSW economy and
contributes more than 10 per
cent of Australia’s current economic growth, and, together
with Melbourne and Brisbane, is overtaking the mining sector as the driver of the national
economy.

Our work at the City
has contributed to this
phenomenal growth which has made
our area Australia’s epicentre of jobs
and job growth - in the ten years to 2016, job numbers grew
by
110,000 to 498,000, or almost 30 per
cent.

If the NSW Government proceeds with
their plans to massively
overdevelop Waterloo and adjacent sites in the way they
are ramming through the monstrous WestConnex, they will
put
all this at risk. A city where people want to live as well as a city where people want to do business.

Our concerns here at the City are multiple. As the third tier of government responsible for the planning
and servicing of the surrounding areas,
we have an expectation and the
right to be fully involved in the
design process and not to
find out about it
on the
evening news.

In terms of context, it is
important that this proposal be developed taking into account other developments
in the area, particularly in terms of traffic generation, infrastructure
and facilities needed, open
space and sports opportunities. This includes the impact WestConnex will
have on the area.

As the body
responsible for much of
the welfare of our existing and new
residents we have to ensure
continuation of city amenity and liveability. We believe
our city should have a balanced
social/economic mix provided by affordable and social housing types.

We believe the proportion
of affordable
housing on this public inner city site is insufficient, and that just replacing the current social
housing numbers, as the Government is proposing, fails to take into
account the growing waiting list.

I believe
we must do all we can to protect
the Waterloo community
and work with them to have this massive
overdevelopment and their dislocation scrapped.

Recommendation

It is resolved that:

(A) Council calls on the
NSW Government:

(i)
to
undertake a proper
transparent planning process involving City input and engage in
genuine public consultation;

(ii)
as
part of the planning process, to take into account
adjacent densely populated
sites both current and planned,
traffic generation including the impact of WestConnex,
residential amenity, a balance of uses including business,
services, infrastructure and open
space, sporting and community facilities;

(iii) to ensure that if there is to be any increase to development on the site, it should
be only (or mostly)
for social and affordable housing. Noting
there is a high need for
these dwellings and the best way
to meet the shortfall is to utilise government owned sites as this reduces land costs which increases the viability of
social and community housing projects;
and

(iv)
to
produce a timetable
outlining when the social housing component of the development will be completed so
displaced tenants will
know when they will be able to return to their home and community as promised by the State; and

(B)
Council notes that the State Government’s brochure is inadequate
for community, information and consultation, and requests the Chief Executive Officer prepare an urgent flyer for the Waterloo community
outlining the City’s
response to the proposals
and providing information about what actions they can take.